The Sunshine Award: My Anime Life

Hello and sorry about the recent lack of posts everyone! I've been dealing with computer issues for a long time, and now that everything is resolved I can begin posting somewhat normally. Upon seeing this post you may wonder, exactly what is this award all about? This award comes from a friend of mine and fellow blogger over at WanAbrar, Rei. If you have the time please check out his blog, as I was once writer there! He has a lot of quality anime related posts!

Moving on, for this award I will be answering a few questions Rei created for his nominees. I will also be nominating a few other bloggers who I communicate with or visit very often and I hope they will also do the same! The reward is basically communication; bloggers get to spread awareness of others they fancy, and readers get a look into the personal life of their writers.

With that being said, let's get onto the questions alright?

What is your most favorite anime genre and why?

Honestly, although this is the first question, I could only complete it last since it was very difficult. Even after all this time to think it through, I don't think I have a sole favorite genre. However, I really enjoy a couple of genres which are somewhat overlooked and sometimes written off due to either fan base or their nature.

For now, I'll start with my more normal favorites. I really love action/adventure anime, with well-written characters. Although not all characters are meant to develop and grow, anime which happen to incorporate major positive growth into anime really amazes me and also provides me with some inspiration. Why? Well, simply because that as the characters are growing, I can feel myself growing alongside them. I feel dynamic characters are also more realistic in a way, because they're more human, like us. Sometimes we can feel alone, but if we have anime characters working hard by our side, life becomes that much easier.

Now that's one half of my favorites. Another half comes from a type that many people may not know I enjoy; ecchi and harem anime. I may get a couple of dislikes for this, but that's alright. I feel that although these genres are looked down upon, they have some depth and their own charm. For one, they highlight things that are natural for humans. B Gata H Kei is an ecchi anime which takes the perspective of a girl's point of view which is interesting to see. Although Yamada is viewed strangely because of her interests, I admire her because she's open about herself and doesn't attempt to hide anything. I don't view her as being less-human, less interesting, or less of a person because of that.

I also believe that some of these series have a serious and mature story beneath all the other parts. B Gata H Kei is another example of this. On the outside, Yamada is a perverted school girl who may seem very messed up to many viewers, but on the flipside, we see many sides of Yamada. She's confident in herself, but still unsure of certain things. She doesn't care about riches or wealth when it comes to people, she likes them for who they are. Although she seems to be very "dirty" she is actually pretty innocent. I think the anime highlights that Yamada has multiple sides of herself like everyone, and isn't necessarily needing to stick to a single one like other characters. 

Even if a person doesn't think like Yamada I believe that there's a part of her they can relate to, whether they are male or female. Although we all try to be strong, we all have some vulnerabilities, and that's what makes us who we are.

Other notable mentions of anime in this genre with decent storylines are Shokugeki no Souma, Rosario + Vampire, Sekirei, and Daitoshokan no Hitsujikai.

Do you like slice of life? If so, what's your favorite in that genre?

Ichika was quickly a favorite of mine. I loved her unique design and I'm really drawn to glasses wearing characters!

Yes, a lot of anime I watch nowadays tend to be slice of life. So I could say that I pretty much like it. I really enjoy slice of life stories that delve from the original plot of "friends at school doing things" into something more unique. I've started watching one in particular, Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches, which starts off in such a way then significantly goes further off from a basic story line. 

When it comes to favorites I usually have a hard time settling on one specific anime. So I'll name two. The first that comes to mind is Ano Natsu de Matteru (a.k.a Waiting in the Summer). I expected it to share a bunch of commonalities with Anohana due to the anime coming from the same producer, but it has a completely different feel to it. Even though its a little less popular than it's predecessor, it just clicked for me. I really love Ichika, the female protagonist of the anime.

Other than Anonatsu, I'd say that School Rumble has a distinct place in my heart when it comes to slice of life anime. I do not know if it counts as slice of life specifically, but it has it's elements. I remember watching School Rumble a lot in my early anime career, and liking it enough to even pick up the manga. If you haven't seen it, it's a series full with lots of laughs and a little romance, perfect if you want something that's funny and relaxing.

Do you like any idol anime in particular? If so, which?

This is probably one of the more difficult questions. Most idol anime and idols in general are a hit or a miss for me. One of the two that I have paid the most attention to recently is Wake Up Girls, and Love Live: School Idol Project. Unfortunately I haven't finished either of the two, but I really enjoy Love Live's game School Idol Festival, which is what got me into the series in the first place. I also find Idolm@ster okay, but my experience with it is very limited.

I really liked the approach of each series, but I always felt like that  my passion for them is missing. Love Live has the characters becoming idols for a greater purpose, which I find really inspirational. Meanwhile, Wake Up Girls gives a spin of the generic idols and seems to focus more on what goes on behind the scenes. Idolm@ster has somewhat of it's own charm; the anime is one of the most well know when it comes to the word idol.

So in a way, I really like a good amount of the characters from the anime, but I'm not really drawn in enough to watch it all the way through. So feel free to talk to me about these character's, the music, and their games, but don't expect me to know a lot about the anime. Despite this, I've been looking at Aikatsu and definitely would like to give it a try someday. Maybe, it'll be the saving grace of my idol problems.

What's your most favorite video game?

This is pretty hard to narrow down so I'll be mentioning a couple. For one, my favorite gaming company has to be Nintendo. I've been playing Nintendo games since I was extremely young, and the characters have a special place in my heart. Aside from that, I really loved Sega and their games, Sonic especially. Both of these companies seem to have a special charm to their games that always interested me. Nintendo tends to draw people of all ages in and focus on fun, while Sega does a few out of the box things that may or may not bode well with the crowd.

My favorite console out of them all is definitely the GameCube. Which leads to one of my favorite video games, Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker. The whole realistic Link style in Twilight Princess was okay, and Ocarina of Time was pretty fun, but Wind Waker just stood out so much to me. I love the art style, I like Toon Link quite a bit, and a world that revolves completely around sailing and traversing numerous islands is pretty unique.

When it comes to more modern consoles, on PS3 I really enjoyed Tales of Graces F, and on Wii U I'm currently hooked on Splatoon. Although I'm pretty competitive and enjoy multiplayer action, sometimes I love winding down with an RPG and immersing myself in a story, especially with characters I can relate to.

How about your favorite manga?

Support the line art creator and color!

When it comes to manga a couple come to mind. For one Naruto, which I talk about all the time. School Rumble is another favorite of mine which I mentioned in another question, and from long ago Suzuka and Vampire Knight. Vampire Knight may seem a little out of place on my list, but it originates from the time when I just got into manga and anime.

I didn't know what shoujo or shonen was, and just watched based on what I liked, regardless of genre. Therefore, being around a couple of shoujo lover friends, I watched and read series like Vampire Knight and Ouran Host Club. Even now, I consider them to be pretty good. 

My last mention would be Rosario + Vampire and Sekirei. I really enjoy the cast of characters from both manga, even though they're an ecchi series. I feel like each one has a lot of hidden depth to them that is overlooked to those who don't try to find it. Rosario + Vampire's manga was actually more well done in comparison to the anime in my opinion. 

This post is pretty long so it's okay to take a break for now! We're at the halfway point. If you're still here, thank you so much for reading!

What did you want to achieve when you first started blogging?

I owe a lot of my blogging inspiration to Miku as well!

Upon starting Shooting Star Dreamer...I didn't really think it'd amount to much. Prior to my blogging career I never took a look at anime blogs and didn't really know that they existed. However, I did know that I loved anime, I loved writing, and I wanted to do something to contribute to other people's lives. That's when the idea of making an anime blog hit me. Thus Shooting Star Dreamer was born.

After getting my blog off it's feet I began to take it a bit more seriously. I took a look at other blogs and saw what they were doing. Unfortunately, I saw a lot of the same tricks. Many people were writing on anime reviews, figure reviews, and other such posts. 

For me though, I'm the type of person who can't give a work of art, anime, a rating of a simple number. The work that goes into it, and the meaning behind everything is far too deep for me to do that. Therefore, I try to avoid those types of posts. Even my review-like posts don't go as far as rating.

So upon taking a look at what others had to offer and what I could do...I came to a simple realization. I can be different. So from them on out, I worked to specialize on what I could do differently from others and decided to build Shooting Star Dreamer as a blog that doesn't fit into a category; one that stands out from the crowd.

Along with this comes spreading otaku culture and anime of course.

Have you ever forced your friends into watching an anime that you like?

All the time! I'm just kidding, I've done it a bit but not frequently. I usually convince my friends to check out a few obscure or unknown anime that are pretty good, but fly under the radar. A good example is B Gata H Kei, which also happens to be one of my favorite anime in existence. (Yamada appears a lot around my blog for this reason.)

Usually when I do persuade (this term sounds better) friends into watching one of my anime, I go from my knowledge of the person beforehand. For instance, I might recommend an anime that I know what offend them, but may take them a bit out of their comfort zone. 

Aside from that I do believe its nice to recommend anime to friends as it's great to spread the things that you like. 

What anime did you like as a kid?

Aside from the more westernized anime, I didn't see too much anime as a kid. Mostly I just watched what was interesting to me, without even knowing if it was anime or not. Like a lot of American kids I absolutely loved Pokemon, and still do. Yugioh and Digimon were also interesting to me, but didn't stay with me like Pokemon did. I also watched a little Dragonball Z and Sailor Moon as well.

One of my favorites was definitely Kiki's Delivery Service. I just happened to find the movie at my local library when I was young and decided to give it a watch and I greatly enjoyed it. Unfortunately as of now I do not remember what it was even all about, but I know that I enjoyed it enough to rewatch it many times.

Besides anime, manga and gaming, what else do you do as a hobby?

This is a really good question! These three take up a good amount of my time, but I do enjoy other hobbies that may or may not be related to them. As a couple may know, I love graphic design. I'm not the best artist in terms of pen and paper, but when I'm working with a computer it feels completely different. This would also be a good time to mention that I've created a DeviantArt account where I will be sharing my creations and perhaps taking requests at some time.

Other than this I really like soccer, listening to and playing music, as well as writing and reading. I also do Japanese on the side studying and working on my skills in and outside of school. When it comes to Shooting Star Dreamer you can see that I somewhat tied all of these things together on this blog!

Any particular words in Japanese that you like?

Support the artist!

Nagareboushi and ryuusei instantly come to mind. Both of these words mean the same things, but use different spellings/kanji for their representation. If you want a hint to what they mean, take a glance at the first part of my blog title, Shooting Star. Another word that I love is musouka which means dreamer. Putting them together you can easily spell my blog out in japanese, Ryuusei Musouka. Doesn't have as much of a kick as Shooting Star Dreamer though.

Other than blog related words, I really love a couple of phrases that are common in anime and daily speech. Ganbarimasu has become a staple in my vocabulary and I find myself saying it often. Another is mada, which used in repetition can mean not yet. This goes hand in hand with one of my all-time favorites, "Makeru wake ni wa ikanai!" Similarly to akiramenai, this can mean "I won't lose, or I won't give up." Most characters that have this line in anime, instantly get my respect.

So that's all the questions! I understand that this was probably very long, and I apologize for that fact. Even if you skimmed or if you read every word, I appreciate the fact that you took the time to read my post! Lastly, are the questions I will provide for my nominees!


Moving onward, here are my nominees:

• Japan Powered - Really amazing blog. I really love how his posts don't simply stop at the surface level, but continue to examine the deeper meaning behind media and Japanese culture.

• The Other Me - Again another amazing blog. The writer, Mihoshi, hasn't been too active lately due to external reasons, but I hope she will be able to partake in this award as well. Her work has been a great inspiration to me and others, and I love the translations she provides.

• A Sound Upgrade - Although I just recently found this blog, I really love the unique style and mix of music and blogging that's provided. The website is currently undergoing renovations, and I'm awaiting the new look!

• MonMonKun/Google Plus Community - A blog by a friend of mine! However, what I really want to share is her Google Plus Community that has worked to bring a lot of anime bloggers together. It's definitely helped me improve my blog.

There's actually a lot of other people I'd love to nominate too...but my list will just continue forever. So I will stop here for now.



My questions for nominees:

• Where do you draw your inspiration?

• What is most important to you when it comes to anime or manga?

• How did you pick your blog name or writing name?

• Where do you wish to see your blog in the future?

• Which anime character do you relate to the most?

• If you could only pick one, would you rather have anime, manga, music, or video games?

• If you were an anime character, how would you want to look? Why?

• Have you ever considered pursuing a career related to anime or Japan?

• What made you start a blog?

• What does anime mean to you?

Those are all ten questions! For the receivers of this award feel free to answer all of them or only some, as you wish. You may also do the questions in any order as well. Afterwards, please nominate a few other bloggers who you enjoy, in order to continue the chain of sunshine!

With that being said, that's all for my post! Thank you very much for reading so far and sticking with me. Even if you weren't in the list, feel free to still spread the sunshine award. We need to make our blogging community stronger by working together!